


The Laundromat

by icebucky



Series: Soap Suds and Study Sessions [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: College AU, DeanCas - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, M/M, casdean - Freeform, laundromat meeting, part of a series, stay tuned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 21:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4196196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icebucky/pseuds/icebucky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saturday was laundry day, which meant that normally, Castiel hated it, but this week, he meets someone new, and that makes it a hell of a lot better than normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Laundromat

Castiel hated Saturdays.

He knew that for the majority of college kids, Saturday was a day of partying, the time when you go out and get wasted with your buddies, and Sunday was the day you dreaded, but for Castiel, Saturday was nothing.

Saturday was laundry day.

Saturday meant that he sat around in the laundromat, in various states of undress (because he had to wash all of his clothes, and that included the ones he was wearing), doing nothing. Waiting for the load to finish. Studying. Staring at his silent phone.

He didn't know anyone, really. The first semester was almost over, and he knew a few people from his book club, was friendly with a classmate or two from his courses, but really, he didn't have that many friends. It's not like his roommates were any help, either; it was clear that Uriel didn't like him and Balthazar partied too much to want to spend time with Castiel.

He sighed. Saturdays sucked.

It was the last weekend before Christmas break, and the tiny laundromat that Castiel frequented was nearly empty, just two girls in the far corner, ignoring him. He was sitting on top of the dryer, listening to his darks jostle around inside, when the door opened with a ringing bell and a cold gust blew in.

Castiel looked up at that, if only to glare at the newcomer, projecting his frustration at sitting directly in the line of wind from the door in only his underwear.

A young man walked in, clearly another student, a bag of laundry slung over his shoulder. Castiel cut him a sharp glance as he lingered in the doorway, leaving it open. He grinned in response, entering and shutting the door behind him. Castiel directed his attention back to his book.

As luck would have it, the newcomer managed to choose the only machine in the room full of machines that was across from Castiel, stripping down to his boxers and shoving his clothes in the washer first. There was a soft lull as he started his load, Castiel purposefully ignoring him, but then -

" _The Great Gatsby_ ," a deep voice from across the aisle announced, and Castiel looked up. The (nearly naked) man across from him was grinning (good god, why was he attractive?), leaning back against the machines and kicking off his boots.

"What about it?" Castiel asked, in a guarded tone.

"I've never read it. Is it good?"

"Um," Castiel said eloquently (wow, way to go), marking his page and closing his book. "I like it," he continued, glancing down at the cover. "It very accurately depicts how humans are afraid of change."

The man's smile widened. "Oh, you're  _smart_ ," he said, crossing his arms. "You go to school here?"

"Yeah," Castiel replied, swinging his legs down so that he was facing the other machines. "You?"

"Yup," he said loosely. "I'm Dean."

"Dean," Castiel repeated, nodding. "I'm Castiel."

"Castiel," Dean mimicked, drawing out the last syllable for as long as possible. "That's beautiful. Your entire family have names like that?"

"Yeah," Castiel huffed, looking down.  _Beautiful_ _?_ "We've got some pretty interesting names. My parents are Bible nuts."

"But you're not?" Dean asked, leaning forward and raising one eyebrow. His eyes were very green, Castiel noted.

"Nah," he breathed, shrugging. Dean was easily one of the most beautiful people Castiel had ever seen, and he'd seen a lot of beautiful people. He had an easy grace to the way he moved, from the set of his shoulders to the way his mouth curved up in the corner, and he was blessed with features that would be rugged if he weren't so goddamn pretty. "I don't really live the kind of lifestyle that allows for religion."

Dean nodded, glancing off to the side, then flicking his eyes back to Castiel. "I get it. But hey, college is where you're supposed to learn to be yourself, right?"

"Right," Castiel replied, smiling. He glanced down at his hands, at the book on his lap. He could feel Dean still looking at him; he cleared his throat and spoke again. "So, uh, what are you studying?"

Dean grinned again, the wide kind that had him rolling his shoulders and lifting his chin to the ceiling. "Mechanical engineering," he answered easily. Castiel raised his eyebrows, at which Dean continued, "I like cars. I figure if I know more about machines in general, I can maybe kick ass and fix people's cars for a lot more money than your average joint down the street. You?"

Castiel raised his book, waved it a little at face level. "English."

"Huh."

A silence followed, making Castiel shift uncomfortably, fingering at the corner of his book. He opened his mouth to say something more, when there was a loud buzzing sound, accompanied by the unmistakable tones of Taylor Swift's  _Blank Space_ blaring from Dean's laundry basket.

Castiel's head snapped towards the sound, as did Dean's, who blushed an incredible shade of red and fumbled for a good fifteen seconds attempting to find the pair of pants that held his phone. When he eventually pulled it out, he glanced at Castiel quickly, muttered, "Sorry," and swiped to answer the call.

"What?" he answered harshly. There was a pause, then Castiel (who had opened his book again in an attempt to give Dean some privacy) heard, "What? No, Benny, I don't want to go to a frat party, getting smashed with those ass clowns would drop my self-respect to an even lower level. Why? 'Cause I'm in the middle of doing  _laundry_ , you asshole, I'm in my boxers. No, go have fun. I ain't stopping you." On that note, he hung up and hopped on top of his washing machine.

"What was that about?" Castiel asked, once Dean had stared at him for a few seconds. Dean scoffed, adjusting his position. It really wasn't fair, Castiel thought, watching the weak laundromat light hitting Dean's shoulders. It wasn't fair that he was so unbelievably attractive, and almost naked, right in front of him. And straight, for all Castiel knew.

"My, uh, friend Benny wants me to go to some frat party, but it's not really my thing." Dean looked down at his hands, picking at his thumbnail.

"Huh," Castiel breathed, and Dean looked back up at him, eyes narrowing a fraction. "Uh, me neither. I'm more your stay at home and binge watch  _Star Trek_ kind of guy."

"Sounds fun," Dean countered. "You seen all the different series?"

And that was how he ended up talking to a pretty boy in the middle of a laundromat, in his underwear, about  _Star Trek_ of all things. A pretty boy who had turned down a frat party to sit in his boxers and talk about  _Star Trek_ with Castiel, a nerd who he had just met. Because there was no way that Dean hadn't actively turned down the party; he still had plenty of clothes and his laundry would be finished while the night was still young.

But no, Dean had decided to stay in the laundromat with Castiel, bickering amiably about whether Picard or Janeway dealt with the Borg in a more effective way.

That was the kind of attention that Castiel was far from used to.

Several hours later, when Castiel's last load buzzed, signaling its completion, he began to put all of the clothes that he owned into the basket as slowly as possible, hoping to god that Dean would ask him to wait for him. By this time, they were the only two in the laundromat, the girls from earlier long gone.

He was still bent over the basket when Dean paused in his animated spiel about the overuse of lens flare in JJ Abrams' reboot, leaning closer to Castiel's basket and asking, "Hey, Cas?"

"Yeah?" Cas asked, turning to look over his shoulder at Dean, hands still busy with the laundry.

Dean bit his lower lip, looking down for half a second, thumb picking restlessly at one of his nails. "Is that your last load?"

Castiel sighed lightly, ignoring the slight buzz he got in his stomach when Dean called him  _Cas._ No one called him Cas. "Regrettably, yes. Now, I suppose it's back to the solitude of my dorm room."

Dean hummed lightly, the air between them full of an unspoken question.

In a rush, Castiel broke it, hurrying out, "I don't suppose you'd want to come," while Dean, at the exact same time, blurted, "Can you stay?"

There was another pause, one that was immediately filled with Dean's smile and Castiel's blush. "Sure, Cas," he drawled, after letting Castiel wallow in his embarrassment for a good ten seconds. "But I gotta tell you, people are gonna talk, what with you bringing a boy back to your dorm room after you've just met him."

"Well," Castiel countered, staring determinedly anywhere but at Dean, "I have already seen you in your underwear."

"Touché," Dean replied, tilting his head as his load buzzed. "Gimme fifteen and we can head to your place." Castiel didn’t have to look at him to know that there would be a stupid smirk on Dean's face, one that he knew would be what his older brother Gabriel would describe as _shit-eating_. 

He lingered for the remaining fifteen minutes in embarrassment and awkwardness, even though Dean seemed to have no objections to heading back to Cas' dorm, much less to the fact that they just met a few hours ago. Castiel wasn’t really sure that he wanted to have sex with Dean, not this very minute, he just wanted to keep talking. God, they hadn't even kissed yet.

Finally, after awkwardly shuffling out the door, dropping Dean's things at his place, and meandering back to Castiel's room, it was late, and all they really wanted to do was argue _Star Trek_ canon and marathon well-loved movies with strong female leads, so Cas queued up _Easy A_ and they spent the evening curled up on his tiny bed, throwing popcorn at the screen and cheering when Emma Stone made snarky remarks.

Dean had an early appointment with a tutor, so he had to head out at about five the next morning in order to even be ready in time, but Castiel smugly held onto the fact that he'd stayed curled up next to him for a good seven hours, and when Dean had gone, he had left behind a sticky note with ten digits hastily written on it in Sharpie.

He'd gotten a smudge of marker on the bedside table and left the cap slightly off, but for some reason, Castiel couldn’t bring himself to care.


End file.
